Libris Britannia 4/science library(b).zip/science library(b)/GRAPHICS/GRAPHUTL/2307B.ZIP/STRTSC10.ZIP/STARTSCR.DOC

Text File | 1990-04-02 | 8.8 KB | 206 lines

STARTUP SCREEN 1.0
__________________________________________________________________

If you like this program, please do one of the following:

Go down to your local bookstore and buy a copy of "Coven: A
Novel", by Steven William Rimmer, published by Ballantine Books.
In Canada, try Coles... they usually have it. Read the book and
tell your friends about it if you like it. Send us some comments
about the book or a photocopy of the cover and we'll consider you
a registered user of this program.

Alternately, send us $25.00, the normal user fee for this
software. (The book is $3.95 or $5.50 in Canada: considerably
cheaper than cash.)

Registered users of this software are entitled to phone support,
notification of upgrades and good karma. Our address can be found
at the end of this file.
__________________________________________________________________


Thanks for checking out STARTUP SCREEN

This program will read any monochrome or sixteen colour PCX image
file and attempt to make a self booting COM file from it. When
it's done... if all goes well... you'll have a program called
START.COM. Install this in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file of your computer
and every time your system powers up you'll be greeted by the
picture of your choice.

There are several potential catches to this. First off, the
START.COM program created by STARTUP SCREEN only works with EGA
and VGA cards. It will refuse to run if it doesn't find one in
your system.

Secondly, the PCX file you want to make into a startup screen
must be of a suitable size. Specifically, it plus the STARTUP
SCREEN driver can be no larger than 65535 bytes total, the
maximum size for a COM file. The startup screen driver is about
three kilobytes long.

The image data in START.COM is stored as a PCX file, so most full
screen sixteen colour images will fit. You'll probably find that
colour images which have been dithered or contain a lot of detail
will not work, as even in their compressed form these can occupy
more than 64K.

Obviously, smaller COM files boot up and display quicker.

Having displayed itself, START.COM will wait for several seconds.
If you hit a key during this time, the screen will dissolve and
return you to DOS. Left alone for twenty seconds or so, it will
time out and dissolve to DOS without your having to press a key.


OTHER THINGS
____________

Creating START.COM is easy. Let's assume that you have a file
called BEASTIE.PCX which is to be your startup image. You would
do this:

    MKSCREEN BEASTIE.PCX

A beg notice will appear. Read this while you're waiting.

Assuming that BEASTIE.PCX is a suitable PCX file, after a few
seconds START.COM will be created and you'll return to DOS. If
something goes wrong, you'll be notified.

Type START to see the picture. Hit any key to banish it, or just
wait for it to time out if you're patient.

You might well ask why we chose to use PCX files rather than,
say, GIF files, as GIF files crunch down so much smaller. The
reason for this is fairly simple... GIF files take a long time to
uncompress. PCX files take almost no time at all.

At this point we'd like to plug a couple of our other programs
which you might find useful in creating PCX files for use with
MKSCREEN.EXE. First of all, there's Graphic Workshop. This will
convert just about any other sort of picture file you happen to
encounter into a PCX file suitable for use with STARTUP SCREEN.
It will dither the colour ones down to black and white, should
you want to create a monochrome START.COM. These look really
slick if you start with a good 256 colour GIF file.

Secondly, you might want to use our CROPGIF program to make small
pictures from your larger pictures. If you have a PCX file which
is too large to use as it stands, you can translate it to a GIF
file with Graphic Workshop, prune it with CROPGIF and then return
it to the PCX format.

See below for all the details.


ROLL YOUR OWN
_____________

This is another book plug. If you're interested in writing
programs which use graphics, you'll find everything you need to
know in "The Book of Bitmapped Graphics", also by Steven William
Rimmer. It's published by TAB books, (TAB book 3558) and should
be available in August 1990. It features code to pack and unpack
MacPaint, IMG, PCX, GIF and TIFF files, as well as chapters on
screen drivers, dithering and printing.


MORAL DOGMA
___________

If you like this program and find it useful, you are requested to
support it either by buying the book mentioned at the top of this
file or by sending us $25.00. We'd rather you bought the book.
This will entitle you to telephone support, notification of
updates and other good things like that. More to the point,
though, it'll make you feel good. We've not infested the program
with excessive beg notices, crippled it or had it verbally insult
you after ten days. We trust you to support this program if
you like it.
    Oh yes, should you fail to support this program and
continue to use it, a leather winged demon of the night will tear
itself, shrieking blood and fury, from the endless caverns of the
nether world, hurl itself into the darkness with a thirst for
blood on its slavering fangs and search the very threads of time
for the throbbing of your heartbeat. Just thought you'd want to
know that.

We are
                      Alchemy Mindworks Inc.
                          P.O. Box 500
                         Beeton, Ontario
                             L0G 1A0
                             Canada

Other programs we've done that you might like include:

Scoop    -  MacPaint, GEM/IMG and PC Paintbrush file readers,
            with Epson FX-80, LaserJet and PostScript printer
            support. Drives CGA, EGA, VGA and Hercules cards.
            Source code in Turbo C and Microsoft MASM is
            included for this program.
HP_Slash -  Make LaserJet soft fonts smaller by selectively excising
            those characters you'll never use.
Calendar -  Slick perpetual calendar that tells you when the
            equinoxes happen, what day Michaelmas fell on in 1705
            and so on.
gemCAP   -  Capture graphics screen in GEM/IMG paint format,
            suitable for inhalation into Ventura.
CPM2DOS  -  Read CP/M formatted disks on your PC.
IMGCUT   -  Crop GEM/IMG paint files into smaller files.
ADDRESS  -  Memory resident envelope addresser with graphics.
VFM      -  Ventura soft font manager deluxe with a side of fries.
            Adds new fonts and creates width tables with menu
            driven simplicity.
MCOPY    -  Copying program which packs as many files as possible
            onto a floppy, pauses when the current floppy is
            full and asks for another one.
TCAP     -  A text screen capture program which generates GEM/IMG
            graphics that look like your text, all ready for inhalation
            into Ventura.
GRAFCAT  -  Prints a visual catalog of your image files, with
            sixteen pictures to a page. Drives all LaserJet and
            PostScript laser printers, and works with any mixture
            of GIF, PCX, MAC and IMG files.
GRAPHIC
 WORKSHOP - This is the last word in image programs. It converts,
            prints, views, dithers and halftones MacPaint,
            GEM/Ventura IMG, PCX, GIF, TIFF and EPS files. It
            drives CGA, Hercules, EGA, VGA, Paradise and ATI VGA
            Wonder cards. It features batch processing, extended
            and expanded memory support, an intuitive user
            interface and easy to follow menus. It allows you to
            convert colour image files into superb black and
            white clip art for desktop publishing, among other
            things.

CROPGIF   - allows you to crop smaller fragments out of your GIF
            files. Use graphic Workshop, above, to convert other
            formats into GIF files for cropping. This program
            uses a simple mouse interface to make cropping image
            fragments no more complicated than using a paint
            program Requires a Microsoft compatible mouse.

If you can't find them in the public domain, they're available
from us for $25.00 each, except Graphic Workshop, which is
$35.00.


LEGAL DOGMA
___________

The author assumes no responsibility for any damage or loss
caused by the use of these programs, however it comes down. If
you can think of a way a picture program can cause you damage
or loss you've a sneakier mind than mine.

All the trademarks used herein are registered to whoever it is
that owns them. This notification is given in lieu of any
specific list of trademarks and their owners, which would not be
as inclusive and would probably take a lot longer to type.

That's it...